Scipio Africanus

Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus

236/235 – 183 BC

Ancient Rome was able to conquer virtually the entire Mediterranean world because it possessed a litany of advantages over its adversaries. One of the greatest of these was its military sophistication and the quality of its generalship.

Perhaps the greatest of these military leaders was Publius Cornelius Scipio, later given the agnomen of Africanus in recognition of his military success in Carthage and North Africa.

Scipio Africanus became one of the most famous men in Rome through his many victories over their rival, Carthage, during the Second Punic War, and is widely considered to be one of the greatest military generals to have ever lived.

Background

Scipio Africanus was born in either 236 or 235 BC into the gens Cornelia, one of the greatest patrician families in ancient Rome, who could trace their influence back to the first days of the Early Republic. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had all been elected as consuls, the leaders of Rome who were elected by the Senate to one year terms.

As such, Scipio was afforded the highest quality education and combat training, and traveled a lot in his youth. This led him to have an interest in other cultures, particularly ancient Greece, and he began to speak and write Greek from a young age.

Early Military Career

At the time Scipio Africanus was reaching young adulthood, Rome was embroiled in the Second Punic War with Carthage, which was led by their legendary commander, Hannibal.

In 218 BC, Hannibal’s forces crossed the Alps to invade the Italian peninsula while Scipio’s father was consul of Rome. Scipio would follow his father onto the battlefield against Carthage, where he would first be recorded in the historical record.

At the Battle of Ticinus, a decisive defeat for the Romans, Scipio’s father had been wounded when his detachment was outflanked by enemy cavalry. Scipio is reported as "charging the encircling force alone with reckless daring”, allowing his father to escape with his life, and beginning his own legend.

The next year, Scipio Africanus was present for one of the most tragic days in Roman military history, the Battle of Cannae. In this battle, Hannibal and the Carthaginian forces decimated the largest army Rome had ever put into the field at the time, crippling their short-term capabilities.

After this disaster, Scipio and another Roman officer rounded up 10,360 survivors from the battle to continue to serve in the defense of Rome. According to legend, a group of these survivors held a secret meeting where they discussed defecting to a foreign power when Scipio barged in, held them at sword point, and made them all swear not to abandon Rome.

Following these exploits, the young Scipio had earned a significant following for his bravery and patriotism. In 213 BC, when he was still in his early twenties, he put himself forward as a candidate for the public office of aedilis curulis. The Tribune of the Plebs, a governing body that was inferior to the Roman Senate, objected to his candidacy due to his young age. Scipio is said to have responded, “if all the Roman people want to make me aedile, I am old enough.” He was unanimously elected to the position by the Senate, and the Tribune had no choice but to give up their objection.

Campaign in the Iberian Peninsula

In 211 BC, when the Italian Peninsula was overrun, Rome was struck another blow when Hannibal’s brother, Hasdrubal Barca, scored yet another victory for Carthage at the Battle of the Upper Baetis on the Iberian Peninsula, which is composed of present-day Spain and Portugal.

To make matters worse, Scipio’s father was killed in the battle. The Roman Senate wanted to send reinforcements to Iberia, but no general would take the command because they considered it a death sentence in light of the recent Roman futility when fighting the forces of Carthage. Scipio alone volunteered and, although he was only 25, his past achievements and passion for this cause was enough to get him elected to the command.

Scipio quickly headed to Iberia, where three Carthaginian armies under Hasdrubal Barca, another of Hannibal’s brothers named Mago, and a third general named Hasdrubal Gisco, had firm control of the region from their base in Carthago Nova.

After arriving in Iberia, Scipio boldly planned to attack the enemy base at Carthago Nova when he learned that all three Carthaginian armies were too far away to intervene. He learned from locals that the tide on one side of the fortress was unusually shallow at a certain time of day, exposing one of the walls to an attack. Scipio used this knowledge to formulate a combined ground and naval assault to quickly overwhelm the enemy forces and take the city.

After this triumph, many Romans believed that the Roman god Neptune had intervened to help Scipio, meaning that he had divine favor on his side. Historians disagree as to whether or not Scipio himself shared this view, however.

The capture of Carthago Nova brought the Roman forces a huge boon of supplies, as well as additional men and a base of operations in Southern Iberia. It also left the three Charthaginian armies without a safe retreat, while Scipio could take time drilling his troops to improve their combat effectiveness.

After taking the city, Scipio was very gentle with the common people, seeing the advantages of portraying the Romans as liberators and saviors rather than a new conqueror in the same image as Carthage. This won Scipio a lot of support among local Iberian tribes and established an attitude that he would return to repeatedly over his career.

Fearing that a prolonged battle with one Carthaginian army would lead to being overwhelmed when the other two joined, Scipio’s strategy was to quickly dispatch one of them as quickly as possible. He got his chance in 209 BC when he faced Hasdrubal Barca in a set piece battle at Baecula.

Scipio ordered a bold infantry charge up the center of the battlefield to draw the Carthaginian lines towards his own, and then dispatched a reserve of cavalry to surround them. Hasdrubal fell for the ruse, leading to a double envelopment of Carthage’s forces and forcing them to retreat from Iberia into the Italian Alps, where they were eventually defeated by a different Roman army.

Scipio's army itself had suffered heavy casualties at the battle, but he had effectively eliminated one of the three Carthaginian armies before he could be overwhelmed. Mago and Gisco arrived on the scene only a few days later, showing the wisdom of the Roman military strategy.

After defeating Hasdrubal’s forces, a number of Iberian chieftains joined with the Roman cause, hearing from fellow Iberians in Carthago Nova that Scipio was a reasonable man capable of mercy. Over time, Scipio amassed a large enough confederation to face Carthage’s remaining forces under Mago and Gisco directly, which he did at the Battle of Ilipa in 206 BC.

In the lead up to the battle, several skirmishes took place between the two sides, where Scipio always had his elite Roman legionaries (Related Page: Roman Republican Legion) at the center of his battle lines, with the more green Iberian troops on the wings, which was mirrored by the Carthaginians.

Then, on the day of the battle, Scipio roused his troops before sunrise and reversed their composition, putting the elite troops on the wings. Furthermore, he moved his formation close to the Carthaginian line so there would be no time for them to rearrange their troops to appropriately counter the Romans.

When the two sides met, the Romans on the wings advanced rapidly against the lesser Carthaginian troops that opposed them, while the center of their line managed to hold firm. This led to the Romans effectively enveloping the Carthaginians by outflanking them on both sides, ironically reversing the formation that Hannibal had used to devastate the Romans at Cannae. The Carthaginians and their allies were routed, leading their commanders to flee the Iberian peninsula.

Scipio’s rapid conquest of the region had denied Carthage an overland route to resupply their forces in Italy, and won him immense glory at home.

African Campaign & Battle of Zama

Following his conquest of Iberia, Scipio Africanus was unanimously elected as consul of Rome in 205 BC. He immediately set his sights on attacking Carthage directly in Africa, in hopes of forcing them to recall their forces from Italy.

Before going on the warpath, Scipio approached the Numidians, who were an important ally of Carthage in North Africa. He got one Numidian prince named Massinissa to pledge his support and much needed cavalry to the Roman side.

Scipio then spent the next year on the island of Sicily, continuing to form a highly-trained military force out of whatever green troops he could find.

In 204 BC, Scipio and Messinissa led a stealth attack on Carthiginian forces and their remaining Numidian allies at the city of Utica in North Africa. The Romans were able to take their enemies by surprise and set their camp ablaze, resulting in a slaughter. This dealt a heavy blow to Carthage’s military strength and led to Massinissa’s coronation as king of the Numidians, bringing all of their might to the Roman side.

This rapid Roman success in taking an important city so close to Carthage itself had the desired effect of causing the senate of Carthage to recall their army from Italy to defend their homeland.

These events led up to a seemingly inevitable clash between Scipio Africanus and Hannibal, two of the greatest commanders in history, on a plain in north Africa between the cities of Utica and Carthage. The two leaders had a great deal of respect for each other and tried to avoid a battle, but peace negotiations broke down, in large part due to Hannibal’s long history of planning ambushes and otherwise eschewing common military conduct.

On 19 October 202 BC, the forces of Hannibal and Scipio met in what would come to be known as the Battle of Zama.

On the day of the battle, Hannibal used 80 of his infamous war elephants to lead the charge. However, the Roman lines were specifically arrayed to counter them, helped in large part by tactics learned from their Numidian allies. Many elephants were frightened off with trumpets or marched harmlessly through their widely spaced battle lines, where they did little damage.

Meanwhile, the Roman and Numidian cavalry overwhelmed their Carthagainian counterparts on the flanks of the battlefield, leading to a melee in the center that ground down to a stalemate. Eventually, the winning Roman cavalry were able to attack Hannibal’s forces in the rear, sealing a Roman victory.

In the aftermath of the Battle of Zama, many expected Scipio to raze the much-hated city of Carthage to the ground. To everyone’s surprise, the conditions of surrender demanded by Scipio were extremely moderate.

The Romans took ownership of Carthage’s naval fleet and weapons, and demanded ongoing monetary tribute to ensure Roman security, but the city of Carthage remained prosperous.

Furthermore, Scipio not only spared Hannibal’s life, but allowed him to remain as the civic leader of Carthage, an act that earned him the lifelong enmity of many prominent Romans.

Retirement, Later Life & Death

Scipio would return to Rome from Africa a heroic figure, having taken the Roman Republic to the greatest heights it had ever achieved at the time. It was at this point that the people gave him the name “Africanus”, an agnomen meant to honor his military victories in the region.

He was given a triumph and offered titles like Dictator and Consul for Life, which he declined, although he was elected Censor in 199 BC.

Despite his unprecedented success, Scipio Africanus had made himself a great number of political enemies in Rome, particularly Cato the Elder.

In 190 BC, Rome went to war with the Syrian king Antiochus III, eventually defeating him. In a political show, Scipio’s enemies drummed up his past diplomatic interactions with Antiochus to claim that he was a traitor against Rome. This led to a trial of Scipio in 185 BC for allegedly taking a bribe from Antiochus. Scipio was able to use his popularity to rouse an outburst of public support. The charges against him were dropped, but his political opponents continued to harry him with false accusations.

Fed up with Roman life, Scipio retreated to his country villa in Liternum, on Italy’s west coast, to live out his remaining years. He died in or around 183 BC at the age of 53, possibly from suicide or as a result of the lingering effects of a fever he still struggled with that he contracted whilst on campaign seven years earlier.

In his final years, he did more to assist his former battlefield rival, Hannibal, than he did to help his homeland. In a sign of the level his disdain had reached, Scipio reportedly ordered that his gravestone read “ingrata patria, ne ossa quidem habebis”, which translates to English as, “ungrateful fatherland, you will not even have my bones.” This has led to speculation that he was buried somewhere other than Liternum or Rome.

Legacy

Scipio Africanus was, without question, one of the greatest Romans who ever lived. He was the first Roman general to project Roman military power outside of the Italian peninsula, taking the Roman Republic from a regional Italian power into an international one, and paving the way for their future conquests. In the process, he significantly upgraded the Roman military in terms of organization and sophistication, and vanquished their arch rival, Carthage.

He never lost a battle, and is seen as one of the best military commanders in all of world history. Scipio’s arch rival, Hannibal of Carthage, once described him as a commander who was beyond any comparison.

Scipio’s popularity and charisma also had a profound impact on Roman culture. Scipio was an avid Grecophile and adopted many Greek customs, including shaving his beard in the style of Alexander the Great, which created a new Roman aesthetic standard for centuries to come.

While he never directly pushed for Rome to emulate Greek culture, his stature within Roman society helped to augment a wholesale Hellenization of Roman culture that was underway at the time.

The gens Cornelia family he had been born into would continue to help shape Roman politics long after his death.

Related Page:

• The Rise of Scipio and the Fall Of New Carthage